In the May 23 issue of the New York Times, Paul Krugman had a very important column on who is getting the lion’s share of corporate campaign contribution as we approach this fall’s mid-term elections.
While the party in power usually gets the largest amount of corporate contributions, this year it’s the Republicans who are racking up the Wall Street cash.
Krugman points out that, according to the Washington Post, 63 percent of bank corporate PAC contributions has gone to Republicans so far this year. This is up from 53 percent last year. Security and investment firms that usually lean Democratic are so far giving more money to Republicans this year. Oil and gas companies who usually lean to the Republicans have so far given the GOP 76 percent of their contributions.
So what’s going on, Krugman asks. He says that “corporate American hates the current administration” and he quotes John Heilemann of New York magazine who says, “Wall Street is in a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury” towards President Obama.
Apparently Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy (back to the level they were when Clinton was in office) and the fact that part of the cost of health care reform will be covered by a surtax on high-income individuals has made CEOs, investment bankers and the like very, very angry at the president and his party.
Of course, Wall Street doesn’t want to be regulated. But after the lords of finance literally brought down the economy, triggering the loss of 15 million jobs, and causing millions of working families to lose their homes, their savings and their pensions, you d think they would expect some kind of crackdown. But Krugman thinks they’re angry because they really didn’t think the Obama administration would pass new restrictions on them. And now that the administration is pushing for that, they are mad as hell.
By the way, Sam Webb, the national chair of the Communist Party USA, at our national convention last weekend pointed out that if you add up the number of underemployed and the unemployed caused by the financial collapse, the real number of jobs lost is more like 30 million.
It’s hard to imagine, but based on their reaction, Wall Street apparently thought it wouldn’t have to face the music. So these profiteers are putting their money on the political party that gave them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and made them lavishly wealthy: the GOP.
What a picture: We have tens of millions who have been forced into joblessness, have been foreclosed and evicted. Homelessness and hunger are growing. overty among black and brown children is reaching the 50 percent mark. States and cities are starved for money to run the public schools, hospitals and other services. All kinds of sacrifices are being forced on working families. Meanwhile, Wall Street is back to making billions. And they are throwing a temper tantrum over even the mildest step towards regulation. It is another reason to really crack down on them. Sam Webb got it right in his keynote at the CPUSA convention, when he said that the Wall Street “banksters” should face criminal charges for what they did.
The unrepentant profit pigs on Wall St. really think they ought to be able to do whatever they want. They are back making billions and in effect expected to be bailed out so that they could continue their unregulated destruction of the economy. That is the height of arrogance.
Financing the Republican efforts to bring down Obama and to elect more Republicans and tea party types to Congress means Wall Street is financing the use of blatant racism and red-baiting to hide what it did: history’s most criminal ripoff of the American people.
The midterm elections this November are an effective way to stop the profit pigs of Wall Street and open the way to more peace and democracy.
Photo: Protestors in Washington, D.C., May 17 demonstration against corporate lobbyists. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
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